The court cited a long line of precedents stating that in general, local governments are not liable for their employees' negligent conduct.
But since it does not own the actual loan, doing that could be seen as violating a long line of precedents that bar separating a mortgage from the underlying note in which the borrower promises to pay.
This raises another line of precedents that work in the government's favor: US v Lee (1982), Swaggart Ministries v Board of Equalization (1990), and Hernandez v Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1989).
In barring the punishment for killings committed before age 18, Justice Kagan drew on two lines of precedent, both rooted in the court's death penalty jurisprudence.
"The confluence of those two lines of precedent," Ms Kagan writes, "leads to the conclusion that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment".But the dissents score several very palpable hits.
The case, Department of Revenue of Kentucky v. Davis, No. 06-666, lat athehe intersection of contradictory lines of precedent dealing with what is known as the "dormant" or "negative" Commerce Clause.
In naming Mr. Gregory, a corporate lawyer from Richmond to the post, Mr. Clinton followed a long line of historical precedents.
Mr. Lamken invoked a line of Supreme Court precedents under which the police may peer through open windows or look down from surveillance planes at open fields.
Because there is no federal regulation of this problem in force, it is fortunate that there is a line of Supreme Court precedents back to 1901 on which the plaintiffs can build their challenge.
It claimed the settlement was in the public interest, fair and in line with decades of precedent.
